Skirting the shattered wall of the temple Stan located the trees. They were on a gentle slope at least a quarter of a mile away. Stan moved down the slope and into the grove. Beyond the trees he could see a glow of light. Working his way through the trees, he discovered a stream and beyond that a stockade made of bamboo set upright in the ground and laced together. Two powerful searchlights played over the stockade.
Stan studied the layout carefully. The Japs were not worried about marking the stockade with light. A bomb dropped on their prisoners would relieve them of the trouble of caring for them. He surmised, also, that Kirby’s escape had caused the Japs to take extra measures to guard the prisoners.
There was little undergrowth in the grove and Stan had to be very careful. The reflected light from the searchlights made a glow that penetrated the shadows under the trees. Reaching the tree nearest the stream Stan halted behind it. The light was coming from two mobile searchlights standing well up on the far bank of the stream. The stream was wide but appeared to be shallow.
The stockade itself was about fifty feet wide by two hundred feet in length. In the center there was a thatched sun shelter, while at the far end was a hut with a thatched roof. A man’s scream rang out into the night, then choked off suddenly. A few minutes later a squad of Jap soldiers came out of the lower gate of the enclosure and marched away with two ragged men tramping ahead of their bayonets. They moved toward the temple.
Stan seated himself behind the tree and watched. His eyes followed the guards as they paced back and forth. He decided the guards came from the temple grounds. That meant the only men present now were those walking in front of the stockade and along each side. But there were plenty of them. There was also a machine-gun crew stationed on a platform which gave them command of the inside of the stockade as well as the ground around it.
Crossing the hundred yards of lighted ground, not to say anything about the stream, would be no easy job. Stan had a feeling he would not get far in such an attempt. He sat down to think it over.
The air was filled with many sounds. From the east came sounds of machinery running at high speed and of hammers pounding upon metal. The Japs probably were trying to repair some of the damage the Flying Tigers had done. Above these sounds rose the put-put of a gasoline motor close at hand. The noise was familiar, Stan had heard such a sound many times. Suddenly he realized that the steady chugging came from a portable light plant.